what's it like in med school?

Question

I heard that once you are accepted in med school they try to do everything to keep you, is this true? but what it like every year? just lectures the two first years with lab and last two year as patient visits?

Answer 1

I'm sure it varies from country to country. However, I saw very little evidence that my medical school in the USA cared about students. In the USA, the years are traditionally divided up as follows:

First year: Gross anatomy, physiology, histology, biochemistry, neuroscience, some sort of psychology/behavior course. Anatomy, histology, and neuroscience have lab sections.

Second year: Pathology, pharmacology, histopathology, microbiology, biostatistics, and physical exam. Microbiology and histopathology have lab sections.

First two years are primarily lectures and labs and involve the rote memorization of enormous amounts of information. The lectures are, by and large, painfully dry and dull. Many schools have note-taking services, which frees up more time for studying. Competition for grades can be very intense; risk of failure is high.

Third year: Clinical core/Clerkships. These are typically done in hospitals. Students follow residents and practice examination, diagnosis, and note-writing. Typically some time is set aside for lectures. Rotations usually include internal medicine, general surgery, neurology, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and psychiatry. Most third-year students will have to take "call," which means you have to work 24 to 36 hrs in a row. Fortunately the residents will usually let you sleep a few hours.

Fourth year: Clinical subinternship/Electives. Subinternship is where you are supposed to function semi-independently and learn how to be a real doctor. You have patients for whom you have primary responsibility, with oversight by the resident and attending. You most certainly will take call. Subinternships can take up to two months. The rest of the year is clinical electives (usually working in a field outside the clinical core) and interviewing for residency.

Answer 2

Hey I'm a student at Med. School, Med Schools hard for the first year but, if you focus it's not very easy but it's not that hard you get to do stuff it's kind of fun really.

And they don't try to Keep you in.